The 10th KURASAWA CUP, INTERNATIONAL OPEN KENDO Championship and seminar
We were greeted on our arrival at the POLIDEPORTIVO CAMPUS NORD- UNIVERSIDAD POLITECNICA U.P.C in Calle Jordi
Girona nº 1-3, Barcelona, by beautiful warm sunshine which was to stay with us for the three days of the event starting with the Kendo seminar lead by Kenji Takizawa sensei Kyoshi, 8th Dan , his brother Masaya Takizawa Kyoshi, 7th Dan and their cousin Tanemichi Chiba sensei Kyoshi, 8th Dan - quite a family affair :) Also assisting: Lorenzo Zago sensei from Italy, together with Kazuyo and myself from Kodokan. The event was organized by the RYO SHIN KAI Kendo Club in Barcelona, with the assistance of Ryo HIRUMA, 6th Dan, and following the concepts of the sensei after whom the event is named, KURASAWA Teruhiko, 9th Dan
KURASAWA OPEN TROPHY
The Kurasawa Cup is a 3-person teams open category. Teams can
Be comprised of solely of men or women, or mixed competitors in order to get as many contestants to take part in the event. The first round was a pool stage of 3 teams in each group. Two teams would go through to the following round; every team had a minimum of 2 fights.
Fights were for Sanbon shobu (the best out of 3 points) In the event of a draw by equal points, one selected competitor per team had to play a fight off to break the deadlock on Ippon shobu (direct win for one point).
After the first round, the fights moved into ‘straight tournament’ according to the refereeing rules of the IKF.
The draw was divided into 4 groups in order to avoid teams from the same club fighting against each other before the semifinals. The four semifinalists from last year’s event were also seeded to avoid fighting against each other before the semifinals.
This year the seeds were:
Ryoshinkai B (Barcelona) – Current champion 2011
Kenwakai A (Madrid) – Second place 2011
Kensei Dojo A (Baleares) – Third place 2011
Kajuki (Aragón) A – Third place 2011
Forty two teams competed from France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, UK and of course Spain in this 'sadly' the last event after 10 consecutive years.
Aioki sensei's Kokugikan Dojo from Berlin team took first place, Ryoshinkai A in second, with Renshinkan B & Kajiki in third places.
Kodokan’s team of Kazuyo Matsuda, Masami Hudson & James Zammit,
finished in the 'Best 8' - the highest showing that we have to date in this event.
There was a very nice live Skype interview link with Japan on the Sunday morning with Kurasawa sensei now 90 years of age still practicing Kendo and even cycling to the dojo.
Hopefully there will be a reconsideration and the event will happen again in some form or other next year.
